Scott Jarrett

So much is out there on social media today and I was shocked to hear and see a local first term Whakatane District Councillor imparting her thoughts on the latest move by Government to deal with homeless people on our streets.

What got to me was that she completed her one-sided rant, telling people who not to vote for.

I don’t have a problem with an issue being debated but I understood when we take an oath to serve as a councillor that we must represent all people of the district and we were to conduct ourselves in a non-political manner.

When on council Judy Turner did extensive work in the homeless arena and improvements made were backed by council at the time.

Unfortunately, this was not a permanent solution.

From this effort, the thing that amazed me most was that there were several homeless who refused help with accommodation options, preferring to live on the street- that was their choice, but we had no tools to deal with that.

This wasn’t mentioned in this one-sided broadcast nor was anything said about how most of our community don’t want undesirable loitering in our public spaces.

I’m not saying the current move is right but at least at long last something is being done and perhaps from this, short comings will be identified and be better dealt to.